Thousandfold
by Furious Broccoli
Summary: This is a short story I wrote as a companion piece to my Warcraft 3 mod: Aerie of Ruin. The story follows the events leading up to the Burning Legion's invasion of Azeroth as told from the perspective of Sir Tristan the Sparrowhawk, a famed warrior-poet.


**Thousandfold**

I watched Lord Lighton sheath _Thousandfold_, the legendary longblade of his father, as the fire of revolution sizzled to bloody darkness. Even my vorpal sword, _Lymric,_ had barely cleared it's scabbard when the killing was finished, and I am the famed warrior-poet Sir Tristan the Sparrowhawk, Lord Lighton's own captain. Though my own deeds of valor are sung and recounted across Azeroth, Lighton's swordplay reminded me that even my most embellished exploits held not a shadow of meaning next to the valor of my liege lord.

_I was knighted for naught but a song._ I gritted my teeth ashamed of my jealousy, but harboring it all the same. He was my brother in arms and my better, Lord Lighton the Orc-bane.

But these men and women who dropped lifeless to the ground were not orcs. They rustled gently like leaves in the fall as red life fled their bodies. Their faces were frozen in the expressions of shock and fear from a moment earlier when we had intruded on their secret meeting, Lord Lighton and myself at the head of a dozen armed men, and Lighton proclaimed King Ueatoh's judgment on them with one word: _traitors._ The next moment, in a flash of impossible speed and prowess, Lord Lighton had ended their lives with _Thousandfold_.

Lighton bowed his head as the ten Undermountain sympathizers stumbled, slumped, and staggered before falling to the shadowed floor of the Oak and Flask's basement. The ten dead: humans, elves, and dwarves, died fast and silent. _And by Lighton's hand alone._ My lord would spare his men the guilt of this butcher's work, performing alone the will of the King we were all oath bound to serve.

After our men set to stacking corpses and questioning the patrons above, I joined my lord in his reverie. We watched our men pick through the carnage and stack ruined bodies in a red heap. It unsettled me to see so much blood in my favorite tavern, some of it from men I'd drank with here. Upstairs, crowds of grimy peasants gawked while more cooed and cawed through the outside windows attracting a mob like crows to a fresh battlefield. Lord Lighton's silence continued for only a moment before he whispered to me in his steady iron tone, "Sir Tristan, I would sooner _Thousandfold_ shave Grom Hellscream's beard than bleed our countrymen like this."

"Not countrymen," I smirked, "_traitors_; the word rhymes with dictator."

Lighton did not smile, not here among the dead children of a failed revolution. "Some words are imprudent to voice, Tristan. Besides what the hells do you know of rhyming? Yours are the only poems on Azeroth that do not rhyme."

I parried the slight with my easy, practiced smile and knelt to close the eyes of a young dwarf who bore a pained grimace to the next world. "_We were right, damn you, and you murdered us for it_," his cold lips seemed to say.

"Tell me again why we do this m'lord." I asked carefully. "There was no dance in this killing, no song in your heart."

"The mountain kings deny us ore and toll our trade routes, Tristan. His majesty fears they raise an army in the depths and covet our fair fields and old forests. To circumvent tragedy his majesty intends war. As well hold a rabid wolf to your throat as allow dwarven sympathizers to sow discord in the Caer when war brews."

"You hide from my question m'lord. Why do we do this, you and I?"

"For duty," he muttered blankly. "For King and kin. Care for the tree that shelters the world." It was the oath we had taken together back when the orcs had won past Stormwind Keep and threatened our home, the tree itself; back when his majesty rallied the free peoples against the Horde. _To bloody victory._

"Care for the tree..." I repeated softly. "In the name of the tree we fought when we should have yielded, lived when we should have died. You and I were _raised_ to nobility, but how many of our friends _fell_? The Hellscream tried to burn the sacred grove, brother." _But what did the dwarves do to deserve war?_ I left the question unstated but it burned in the air between us and echoed from the still mouths of so many dead countrymen.

We were interrupted by a man wearing the style of a royal messenger, who handed a sealed page to Lighton and took his leave. Lighton broke the seal and scanned the missive.

"As planned his majesty will issue a royal proclamation this afternoon, declaring our victory here. Will you accompany me to the castle, Sir Tristan?"

"Alas m'lord, this hawk has a sparrow to chase while the sun rides high and a cask of wine to drown in when the orb falls low. I've just acquired a fine red from Undermountain, called 'blindwine.' They say the grapes will never know the light until poured. I would be honored if you'd join me in my stupor tonight, m'lord."

"I've lost my stomach for the red, Sir Sparrowhawk. All the same, happy hunting to you."

Though my lord would not join me for drink, at least my quarry decided she would. The Duchess of Drake herself was not one for the bottle, but when word of the royal proclamation reached us at the Grove of Sighs, she had agreed that little else would blunt such dire news. We retreated to my manor house in Hopetown while the sun was still high.

The first four cups of the pale goldberry de'vaunt stole down my throat before I had the will to speak my mind. "Orc-piss and damn-it-all!" One did not normally speak freely among nobility but, like me, the Duchess was not born elevated; she had earned her title by her many works. She had been the last scion of the old masters and had turned her knowledge to architecture, constructing wonders of an incredible magnitude, the likes of which the world had never seen. Along with the Duchy of Drake, she had been appointed Royal Architect of the Caer. Even so, it was I who granted an audience to her, the mother of the Luminous Cathedral herself. Fame does have it's perquisites.

The Duchess blinked to keep her composure and expounded on my less than eloquent sentiment. "The worst of it is the dwarves haven't actually _done_ anything to the Caer, Hawk. Undermountain has many friends within and without, you know. They won't simply _surrender_. The plague spreads in the outer villages, smallfolk whisper of the dead walking, the crown _does nothing_. His majesty has gone mad, Hawk. There can be no other meaning for his behavior. If we invade Kaz-Grudann the best sons of the Caer will be buried before the year is out." She enunciated her words with the annoying precision of the over educated. "Still you should be happy--the great Sparrowhawk-- famed warrior-poet." She smiled with false candor, those too-perfect teeth hiding her dismay. "Is not battle your muse? You were knighted not only for your prowess but also for the free people's love of your warsongs, your hero's tales. I do fancy your tunes, but I can't help but notice you've spared little breath for verse these last years."

"The muses of this war will inspire naught but tragic ballads and morose iambs. They can bugger themselves for all I care." I washed down those bitter words with a mighty gulp of the sweet pale summer-wine. "Lighton was wrong, red wine would be perfect for this occasion; too perfect by half." I pulled the stop from the cask of blindwine and poured two chalices. Light from the fireplace kissed the velvet liquid gently and clung in a mist around the inner rim of the silver cups.

"And so we drink the dwarves' red, as if to say 'fate we defy you in our cups'? Is the bottle as far as your defiance goes?"

Of course she was sympathetic, who wasn't? "I'll not defy my Lord Lighton, m'lady, not for fate nor any other divinity. The man is the only paragon in this entire cursed world, but even he must bow to the King."

She nodded with the impatience of a seer. "Our King Ueatoh didn't win any friends by barring the Luminous Cathedral. His highness provoked Bishop Sophrisyne outright today, and only the Light knows what violence she and her zealots are capable of."

"Aye, m'lord Lighton and I are like to be wiping holy blood from our blades in a fortnight. Mark my words."

"If you and Lighton were to challenge the King…people would follow. Lighton holds more sway with the army than the crown does and you with the people."

I laughed at her theory, her total misjudgment of Lord Lighton. Amused, I poured more blindwine, savoring the sight of the maiden wine deflowered by firelight. "Lighton is not like us; he has a heroes honor and holds duty as the highest virtue. He'll not deny the King, no matter the cost."

"In that case, he sounds like no hero to me." The wine had made her brave, but had dulled her famous wit.

_Or has it?_ I let it slide. My wits were not quick as hers even when I was sober, and I was not about to let her trap me with one of her renowned ploys. "What of you Duchess? The King is sure to lend his favored architect the royal ear."

"I stole into the castle garden last week after presenting my plan for the icewood aqueduct. Icewood has a fascinating property when cultivated under strict humal soil and half-light to where it can actually melt the…"

"Please m'lady, my thumbs are no greener than my eyes, which are blue as the cloudless skies…"

The Duchess groaned and rolled her eyes. "Wine doesn't agree with your verse in the least. Spare me your poetry tonight, Hawk, and I'll spare you too much enlightenment. You know the great azure oak in the royal garden, the tree that has long been the pride of the Ueatoh line?"

"The tree is symbolic of the Ueatoh family duty to care for the great tree of life," I said with exaggerated respect. The wine was making me brave too and a bit more foolish than usual.

"The azure oak had taken the rot months ago, but you would not know to look upon it. The oak stands tall and hale, though the sweet smell of decay dominates the arboretum. The tree will fall any day, yet the gardeners claimed they were not allowed to tend it. His majesty forbade pruning the old tree, and so it dies from the inside! You can imagine my outrage. I told the gardeners what I thought of that edict, and one of them had the gall to inform his highness of my disapproval. Needless to say, there will be no icewood aqueduct, and I was lucky to leave with my title intact. Mayhaps if the Lord Lighton knew of the tree and the rot…" Her delightful face was a portrait of concern and admiration for my Lord.

Even in my drunken haze I knew what she was doing, how she was goading me. I knew, but by the archbishop's arse, my passions were high as only a piss-drunk poet's can be. I slurred a spirited speech on Lighton's heroic paralysis and stubborn honor, during which I threw my goblet to the fireplace and uncorked a fresh bottle with particularly dramatic timing. The Duchess squeezed my hand, thanked me for the wine and took her leave, smiling like a sage all the while. I watched her carriage ride into a blazing sunset from my balcony and shook with vigor and righteous rage.

For some time, I cradled the wine and tried reading the dregs at the bottle's end in hopes of fanning that rare inspiration, that fleeting heroic passion, when my memory thankfully faded to black.

* * *

_Fie not an agony_

_O'er a five bottle ache_

* * *

How many boots struck me before I emerged from that colorless abyss of pain?

Not as many as were inside my skull, I promise. My body may have been broken in a thousand places for what it felt like; my tongue was a sandy rug reeking of grapes, and I had rather large red and gold wine stains adorning the front of my shirt. Worst of all my palms were thorny with splinters of some kind, and their pain pulsed in agonizing time with the marching of the boots in my skull.

I was in a cell, and my jailors bore the uniforms of Ueatoh guardsmen. They prodded me to my feet and half marched, half carried me down a dozen great halls. I had awoke in hell.

Hours passed in a waiting room where I was allowed water and finally had the presence of mind to wonder what had happened. My memory was a sore, blank void, and the guards would tell me nothing.

I blinked: the door opened, the guards walked out, and there loomed my Lord Lighton. Fear mingled with shame and drowned out the evil throbbing in my mind. Had I not been beaten so badly already he undoubtedly would have struck me. It hurt worse that he did not.

"Sir Sparrowhawk the tree climbing interloper and prophet? Doomsayer?" His voice was low and booming, his accusations sparking vague images from the night before. An azure tree flashed in my mind, and I groaned. "Hawk, what happened to you? Some are naming you 'rebel,' and King Ueatoh is beside himself in anger!"

I had never seen Lighton so concerned before, and my heart sank to my bowels. I muttered softly, "Drink and Drake. I remember aught else m'lord."

Lighton's eyes lit with rage but instantly softened as he sighed and shook his head. "They found you up the blue oak in the royal garden pulling down limbs, you spoony oaf. You were spouting some nonsense about 'symbolic rot,' 'worm food,' and singing crass shanties about a dwarf maiden's beards. They said the branch you were standing on broke and you fell a full fifty hands face first into the fountain."

"I…I was drunk." I offered with feeble-minded resolve.

Lord Lighton rankled his nose and pointed to my tunic. "I don't think anyone will dispute that claim, sir." A black look shadowed his face. "Your lands and titles will be revoked, my friend, and they will try to do worse. I don't know if I can help you this time."

I smirked with false confidence and tried a smile, but the pounding in my skull came back so suddenly it brought tears to my eyes. "Life is but a song m'lord, my title but a word."

As I struggled to regain my wits, I was ushered into the throne room where an ancient petitioner was pleading for the King's sympathy. So engrossed was I in my impending fate that I barely noticed that he was the old mountain man from Pic Peregrin. Tales of him were surely exaggerated; the smallfolk claimed he had watched over the Caer from his lofty refuge for over three hundred years. If not for his occasional sojourns to trade for sundries, I would have said he was but a myth.

The old one's voice was raspy and alarmed, as if he had not used our tongue in decades. "The tree of life is broken! The Black Kingdom is coming! Sire, you must heed the stars. None may deny such a portent, even…"

King Jeffrye Ueatoh interrupted sharply in a tone that would brook no argument, "Enough of your ramblings. Where were your warnings when the Horde came, hermit? What know you of the great tree, you who claim forbidden knowledge of demonkind? You freely admit to breaking taboo, yet you expect us to believe your wild insubstantial claims?" The mob shouted in approval at the King's appeal. "Guards, I think a stay in the dark dungeon will calm this mad man. Take him away."

The old man was so shocked that he seemed not to notice when the guards clasped him by the arms. "The stars tell of ruin. Hopetown will burn, you will see! The Wyrm in your heart cannot hide for much longer!" The King yawned and called for refreshments as he waited for the clamor to die down.

His highness' court received me soon after. I knelt before the raised throne in my dishonor, head underfoot of his noble majesty. Spike-tipped pole axes born by Ueatoh's private guard ringed the dais around the King and I. Ueatoh's crown sat askew on his balding pate as he leveled accusations of dwarf sympathy and trespassing atop the stinging charge of treason. The King's voice rose to a stinging nasal crescendo as he proclaimed, "Sir Tristan the Sparrowhawk, in your blasphemy and blatant disregard for our tradition, you have defiled the great tree of my ancestors."

It was the only time I broke my silence in the trial, "The azure oak was already rotten your majesty, I had no…"

"Silence!" Ueatoh shrieked loudly, triggering another series of violent headaches. He stood and passed judgment. "For crimes against the throne you are hereby stripped of all titles, lands, and incomes. For crimes against the great tree, you will be hanged." The throng of nobles, courtiers, and vassals in the great hall burst into loud chatter, and I vomited from a new wave of pain.

The King's gaze lifted from me to the rustling crowd behind. Lord Lighton stepped out towards the throne, climbing the dais with his long, sure stride. A sharp hiss sounded, followed by an uneasy silence as the mob held it's collective breath. King Ueatoh's face alit with a tight smile as his famed champion approached. "Your hawk has transgressed our kingdom, our duty, and forsaken our solemn oaths, my Lord Lighton. Have you come to plea for his life?" _The bastard actually sniggered._ "What amends could you possibly make?" he added cruelly.

Lighton addressed the court in his booming battlefield voice. "Your majesty, my sworn duty is to care for the great tree, and to that end I have served you all my years. I agree that the Sparrowhawk has transgressed and deserves a just punishment. But, however unseemly his conduct, he was right. Your family tree has taken the rot." From behind his thick warg-pelt cloak he lifted a branch of azure wood and cast it to the floor, where it crumbled into a sickly black pile, oozing with pale putrid worms. "My King, it has been my honor to serve you, but now I must abjure all you have given me. By my soul, I swear in front of this court never again to slay a countryman. The true tree calls my name and I must go to protect it. I relinquish my title and lands to the throne. Take my blade, _Thousandfold_, as a symbol of my goodwill, and please have mercy on good Sir Tristan."

The King's smile turned wide and almost giddy. By rights he should have been furious; his most notable champion had just done the unthinkable. "As you wish," the King said graciously. He rubbed his royal hands together. "Approach the throne, Lighton. Kneel and present your famous sword." Lighton did as commanded. _Thousandfold_ was clear of it's scabbard without a whisper as Lighton presented the pommel outward for the King to grasp.

A terrible vision crossed my eyes in that moment: the King, appeared as transformed into a walking corpse with a monstrous mad imp perched on his back, chewing on crown and pate. I squeezed my eyes but the vision remained. I tried to move, to yell, but my legs were wooden, my jaw locked as iron. Lighton must have seen it the same as me for he gasped in surprise but remained frozen. The King-corpse whispered quietly to him in a cacophonous tone, "Never have we known a human with your power before…you alone might have saved the life tree from our vanguard. As the life tree falls, so is the gate to Azeroth cast open for the Burning Legion. The Black Kingdom comes, and the Wyrm will feast on madness!"

Suddenly the vision was gone, Ueatoh seemingly healthy and regal, except that his royal visage was now one of panic. He let out a womanly scream. _Thousandfold_ had somehow reversed in Lighton's grip, _no, through his grip_, and leapt into Ueatoh's breast _all by itself_. Lighton grabbed for the blade, but he might as well have lunged for lightning. King Ueatoh fell backward and sighed his last, the Ueatoh reign and line severed. Lighton knelt, head bowed, beaten. Royal guardsmen shouted and leveled their polearms. Lighton turned a tragic gaze to my face and said only, "Sing." Even without his sword, Lighton could have killed the guardsmen and won free from the mob, but they were his countrymen, and he was the best man I have ever known. My lord died with a smile, green eyes meeting my blue, as the cruel axes fell on him.

In the following days, the Caer mourned the Ueatoh they knew and cursed Lighton with every other breath. The Duchess of Drake believed my tale; she practically worshipped Lighton and reputedly collapsed when she heard Lighton was named regicide. The retired General, Ba'er Brogan, took up the mantle of stewardship to prevent the kingdom from falling to chaos, revoking the mad king's charges against me in the act. I begged a room at the Oak and Flask and worked feverishly to transcribe this tale from my heart into cantos, channeling the truth of Lighton and his duty into song.

The night of the royal funeral the Duchess saw to it that Lighton's body was presented alongside the King's at High Castle and before the mob could riot, I sang my cantos. Never before had I voiced such purity and focus and by the end, the entire Caer sang along with me. The walls shook with the majesty of truth and tragedy, sorrow and loss. I cried like a babe as the realization dawned that the free people would now know Lighton as a hero to the end.

The somber silence that followed my song was shattered by a terrible, unholy clamor sounding from the north. The mob crowded to the gates, but was stopped in it's tracks by the scene unfolding beneath the High Castle. The sacred grove had been sundered and defiled by a massive hellish gateway, which stood bleeding a putrid yellow-green light, freezing all around it in cold shadows. _The tree of life is broken._ The mob, I among them, watched helplessly as more gates sprang from the land we had sworn to protect. Shadowy legions spewed from the bright openings, and soon a fiery inferno lit the northern sky as the Black Kingdom descended. The horrible truth of the old hermit's prophecy was reflected in the flames as Hopetown burned.

I watched the faces in the crowd as the realization dawned-- just as our King and Lord Lighton were gone, so now were our homes and our hope. Though the flames spread as unspeakable horrors darkened the night, the faces of the Caer adopted a darkness all their own. This night, choices would be made, the brave would stand over the craven, and the fate of all would hang in the balance. The battle for Azeroth had begun.


End file.
